The Blust Avenue Teaching Garden is an amazing place to be this spring! It's early, and we're still getting snow from time to time, but the beautiful days are starting to outnumber the cold ones - at least that's what I keep telling myself - and summer is fast approaching.
The big news is that a new shed is underway, but more about that later this week! (I can't give you all the excitement at once - it may be too big of a strain! It's for your own safety that I'll dole it out in small doses).
Planting is going strong and gaining momentum every day! We have two new Juwel Cold Frames, freshly planted by students with cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce.
We have new plantings in the hoop house, as well. Yes, they are a little bit behind for the season, but we are still working on our infrastructure, and this is the first spring season for the hoop house, so I'm happy to get done what we can.
We have mustard, cabbages, lettuce, radishes, carrots, and kohlrabi. We have a great crop of cilantro in the background here:
Students helped build three mounded beds inside the hoop house, and those are doing well. One is covered with radishes, and those guys are going to need some thinning soon.
The leaves you see in the photos were brought in to keep down some of the weeds, and we are leaving quite a few of them to mulch into the soil. The worms love them, and organic matter is important to soil.
The Red Russian kale, spinach, and collards made it through the winter and are doing great!
The collards planted outside didn't fare as well, as you may remember from a previous post.
Our experiments will continue, with many duplicate plants inside and outside the hoop house, as well as with a wide variety of plants, because that's really what gardening is - experimenting. Never be afraid to try something new, or a new variety of an old favorite! And it's perfectly fine to cackle, yell, "It's alive!" and do your best Victor Frankenstein impression during your garden experiments. Plants don't judge, and neither do we!
Lots more to come this week, so stay tuned! And go experiment with a new plant variety while you wait!
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